“Nanostitching” of fibre composites using aligned carbon nanotubes (CNTs) is described in Chemical, Mechanical, and Thermal Control of Substrate-Bound Carbon Nanotube Growth, Extended Abstract of Doctoral Thesis, Anastasios John Hart, December 2006. This document is available online at:
pergatory.mitedu/ajhart/research/documents/ajhart_phdthesisextendedabstract_jan07.pdf
Consecutive layers in fibre composites are connected by aligned CNTs which are primarily perpendicular to the fibre surface.
Although such techniques connect consecutive layers of the composite, they fail to provide a continuous link from one side of the composite to the other because the layers of CNTs do not overlap with each other. Also, such techniques do not address the fundamental challenges of producing nano-only composite structures; namely full dispersion with alignment and optimised bonding. Significant challenges remain in this area as mentioned in “Two defining moments: A personal view by Prof. Alan H. Windle”, Alan H Windle, Composites Science and Technology 67 (2007) 929-930: “ . . . we need to make materials containing a high volume fraction of nanotubes which are both straight and very well aligned. It will mean an approach radically different to simply stirring (or sonicating) CNTs into a polymer melt or resin, as if they were the ultimate magic filler”.
IOP PUBLISHING NANOTECHNOLOGY, Nanotechnology 18 (2007) 165602 (11pp) doi:10.1088/0957-4484/18/16/165602, Fabrication of composite microstructures by capillarity-driven wetting of aligned carbon nanotubes with polymers, E J Garcia, A J Hart, B L Wardle and A H Slocum, Published 23 Mar. 2007, describes the interaction, or wetting, of long aligned CNT forests with thermoset polymers. A submersion method is described in which a silicon wafer with CNT pillars is first placed on a stage that allows displacement along the z-axis. A small pool containing polymer is placed below the stage. The stage is lowered until the top surface of the CNT features comes into contact with the polymer pool. At that moment, the suction forces created by the capillary effect draw the polymer into contact with the entire wafer, submerging the CNT pillar completely. The stage is then separated from the pool.